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May 2014 Vol. 7, No. 1

an architectural puzzleDecoding

Stargazingin luxury

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Contents

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Home sweet home

When a student returned to his childhood home he

found others had too.— John Hazelton

Will the real architect stand up?

Long thought the sole design of famed

architect Richard Neutra, a closer look at Orange

Coast College’s history brings some surprising

results. — Ignacio Cervantes Jr.

Mansion mystery

Growing up in the shadow of one of Orange

County’s most notorious homes had its advantages -

and disadvantages. — Miles White

A closer look at the cosmos

Tired of its broken star machine and overused

equipment, Orange Coast College plans to build a

new planetarium. — Miles White

Garage band

Costa Mesa resident Zach Baldwin and his band The

Bluffs bring their style of music to the masses — and

he makes a mean sandwich too. — Kylee Pico

Family fortunes

One student’s family tree brings her face to face with

history and defines her as a true member of

California royalty.— Kylee Pico

10

Irvine artist Richard Kent painted a watercolor of Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, designed by famed arhcitects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander. The painting was done for the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

“This is kind of what we’re doing right now to look back and see if it’s true. Was Richard Neutra a part of this?”

3May 2014one fifty two

Orange Coast College’s past may not be all it was cracked up to be.

The sightseers who come to the campus regularly, in fact, may be in for a surprise if an investigation into the design of the original campus confirms what some administrators suspect.

Rather than being the brainchild of one of architecture’s most beloved post-modernists, Richard Neutra, it may actually have been designed by an underling — a lesser known Los Angeles architect.

To solve the case, a campus team is conducting a search of written contracts between the college and original architects to discover the true designers who turned the one-time Santa Ana Air Base into Coast’s first campus.

The planetarium, the math and business wings, the Robert B. Moore Theatre and the Harry R. LeBard Stadium, built in the 1950s, have all been linked with the famous modernist architect Neutra, conflicting with building historians who don’t support OCC’s intent to destroy the math and business wings and the planetarium to make room for newer, up-to-date structures.

OCC’s Vice President of

Administrative Services Rich Pagel, though, suggests that written contracts discovered so far indicate that Coast’s campus may not be as synonymous with Neutra as people think.

“I go back to the actual contract we have here established,” Pagel said while picking up a document dating back to 1949, “and it doesn’t mention Richard Neutra. This is kind of what we’re doing right now to look back and see if it’s true. Was Richard Neutra a part of this?”

The main architect suggested by Pagel, and revealed in

a contract, is Robert E. Alexander. Alexander, also a well-known architect, created a partnership with Neutra in 1949 that lasted through 1958.

Despite no mention of Neutra in the contract, according to

architect Barbara Lamprecht, a modern building historian, it is crucial that everyone knows it was a commission done between the two architects.

“We know that the overall original campus was designed with Neutra and Alexander,” Lamprecht said. “It’s really important that the partnership’s name is Neutra and Alexander.”

According to Lamprecht, OCC’s modernism style fell off the radar as time went by.

Between the late 1960s and 1980s, modern architecture was supplanted by newer postmodern architecture and several other architectural styles.

One of the qualifications for

whether the buildings will be replaced, and most important in OCC’s case, is whether the buildings have historical value. According to architectural historians, they indeed do. But, with Pagel and his team digging up documents, the only credit Neutra receives is for work on the Robert B. Moore Theatre, which isn’t slated for demolition.

Neutra’s participation in the theater, Pagel said, is why he is credited with the design of other buildings. Pagel said that since it was true, on paper, that Neutra was involved in the theater, the word got around that he was responsible for “maybe other buildings. He designed the stadium, the Forum, the Science Lecture Hall.”

“But when you dig down through the paper work a little bit, you realize, other architects are named in those documents,” Pagel said. “So, Neutra maybe didn’t design those buildings.”

OCC architecture professor Rose Anne Kings admits that the case surrounding Coast’s buildings is a sensitive subject.

“The general understanding is that he had a part in all of the campus plans, the stadium, as well as the Neutra classrooms and the Robert B. Moore

Famed architect Richard Neutra may have had less to do with OCC’s post-modernist design than originally thought.

By Ignacio Cervantes Jr.

File photo

Richard Neutra was long thought to be the architect of much of Orange Coast.

See NEUTRA Page 12

Architectpleasestand up?

Will the real

— Rich Pagel vice president of

administrative services

one fifty two4 May 2014

The house around the cornerI vaguely recall growing up in the quiet,

irksomely conformist neighborhood of The Willows in the city of Irvine.

This was a place where staying outside past your curfew hours made you feel like a rebel.

A nearby house of my childhood still looks the same as I remember it, if a bit

more tarnished. The makings of a large driveway lay with gravel strewn across the front yard like a moat of dirt. Cobblestone walls sheath the neighbor’s fence only halfway finished. Tall vegetation has been conveniently planted by residents to mask the house from view.

The façade of the mansion looms, tucked

behind the unfinished lot with broken windows boarded up from the inside. Only shards of glass remain from the right-hand window as if someone heaved a large rock through it and no one cared to replace the glass.

The pale blue coblestone base contrasts wildly with the Victorian roofing as if the architect tried to mix King Arthur’s Camelot with Dickens. And, unsuccessfully.

There usually is not much diversity or action for the sleepy suburb nestled within the confines of culs-de-sac, neighborhood associations, parks and

By Miles White

A controversial Irvine house has a history of lawsuits, loans, conflicts and even strippers.

File photo

Irvine’s Kron Street castle has a storied history and is still seen as a mansion by some and a monstrosity by others.

schools all meticulously planned, preened and perfected. So, when an eyesore like the Kron Street Castle appears, you tend to take notice.

I grew up in a small 780-square-foot house with two bedrooms and one bath shared by five people just on the other side of the hill from the castle, always able to see its turret from the back yard of my house. Almost everyone I knew from The Ranch, the neighborhood across from mine, loathed that house based on proximity. The ones who lived closest to it hated it the most.

My parents were always indifferent about the house’s place in The Ranch, coming from the ‘who gives a crap’ school of thought. Growing up, I never thought much about the big ugly house either. Until now.

Its presence, despite all the pushback from neighbors over the years, remains a constant blemish on the neighborhoods’ reputation, violating nearly every building code on the books. But still, the house stands.

Looking at it now, it is hard to think that the house on this lot began as a modest one-story ranch style home back in the mid-1970s. The house was purchased by the Ganish family who moved into the country from Israel in 1978. In 1982, construction began to make the house into something no one would ever expect.

It was as if the family of five, two sons and one daughter, had big plans to build their own perfect dream house. They never anticipated, however, that it would end up everybody else’s nightmare.

The house at one point had more than 100 building code violations, and in 1995

the city of Irvine had little choice than to take the family to court. To keep up to code, the Ganish family would need at least $65,000 to make the appropriate adjustments.

By a bizarre twist of events, Mark Bailey, the owner of a strip club in Lake Forest called Captain Creams, probably inspired by the family’s rogue individualism, lent the Ganish family the money needed to bring the house up to code.

Bailey even offered the services of his exotic dancers to the Ganish family to help out with the needed construction. The family later ungratefully sued Bailey over

the unprofessional quality of the houses’ construction, not that you could blame an exotic dancer for not knowing how to wield a hammer.

The city of Irvine lost its case against the Ganish family and they were allowed to keep construction going. This was 17 years ago and the house looks no closer to completion.

In 2002, Bailey was charged by the state of California for

two cases of tax fraud, one for filing false tax returns, and the other for failing to report income his club had earned from cover charges and bar receipts. He was pronounced guilty by a federal court in Santa Ana and was sentenced from 30 to 37 months imprisonment, with one year supervised release, plus a $60,000 fine.

As with any story featuring loose ends, the vacuum of answers will always be filled with conspiracies, even ghost stories.

Rumors emerged that the mother, Fern Ganish, murdered her three children and that her

husband Victor had buried the bodies within the walls of the mansion before leaving the place altogether. Maybe it was the house’s Amityville-like presence.

However, a realtor from Zillow told me that the Ganish family still owns the house, despite being unable to live in it. So much for a ghost story.

Beyond this, I couldn’t find any more information on the

Ganish family themselves, or where they are residing today. Although, given what I have found, it seems like not much has changed for the family since the results of the trial with the city of Irvine.

The place looks completely void of any life or use today and yet still yields some activity every once in a while. A new white fence has been fastened onto the previously unfinished balcony of the second story. Only a few months ago, I remember there only being a bare wooden platform like a plank over the gravel moat below.

The mansion still looms like a lumbering beast behind its unfinished fence on that corner of the Kron Street cul-de-sac. Its windows are like lifeless eyes, seldom awakening, to briefly show signs of life.

As if someone is still working on it from the inside, you can still see the occasional light flicker on from inside the house through windows not boarded up or broken.

Nearly two decades since having won their right to design their home to their

accord, the Ganish family’s home still looks no closer to completion. It has

become one of the few parts of the neighborhood in complete stasis.

It’s sort of a sad sight to see someone’s dream home reduced to a collage of unfinished ideas, now a stain upon the cul-de-sac. But then again, it also humors me to see such a hideously non-conformist house plotted in the middle of a neighborhood obsessed with perfection.

I’m glad it still stands.

5May 2014one fifty two

Photo courtesy of Googlemaps

The Ganish family started construction to turn an average Irvine home into their castle more than a decade ago and the structure remains unfinished.

6 May 2014 one fifty two

The small auditorium inside the planetarium was packed with students after another night of star gazing on campus. The Orange Coast College astronomy class had just finished finding Jupiter through the class telescopes.

The class was packed into the domed room anxiously awaiting the professors’ last words before dismissing them for the evening. The walls were covered with a mossy blue foam that would have looked dated even in the 1970s.

Astronomy professor Nick Contopoulos, 59, stood at the doorway of a small musty closet overseeing his few remaining students who gingerly tucked away the fragile equipment for the night. One student came up to Contopoulos with a palm-sized lens in his hand and told

him it broke.“Another one,” Contopoulos

asked, sounding resigned.The evening would have

been a typical gathering of aspiring star gazers if only they had a star machine working. The college’s planetarium has seen better days than this and could benefit from renovation.

The planetarium had a working star machine a decade ago until it broke. Since then, the inside of the building has been primarily used as a lecture hall for astronomy lectures.

“We have asbestos in the walls,” Contopoulos said. “You know, this place is just old. It has had a lot of use.”

Despite the obvious signs of aging, there is still a quaint hominess to its interior. Three life-sized aliens, all rubber, sit propped against the wall in the

back of the small lecture hall. One is wearing a pink dress as if at a tea party. The smeared residue of old chalk dust litters the green chalkboard wrapping the front half of the room, harkening back to a time before whiteboards.

As one of the oldest buildings on campus, the planetarium is also among the smallest. It was built in 1958, seating 35 people and initially cost less than $100,000 to create.

“The same amount of money couldn’t even afford you a decent telescope today,” Contopoulos said.

Classes are not all the planetarium houses. Weekly Thursday meetings from the campus Astronomy Club are also held in the same room.

The club was founded by Contopoulos in 1991 to give

students a place to talk and learn about astronomy outside a classroom setting. They raise money to go traveling to various planetariums and use their telescopes. Funds are also used to support planetariums in financial need.

“They raised $1,700 to restore the 60 inch up at Mount Wilson,” Contopoulos said. “The club has done a lot of great work.”

Many use their club membership as a stepping stone toward a broader career in astronomy. With plenty of experience working telescopes like the one at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, the club turns over membership each year as the students transfer off to other schools.

Stargazing 101OCC’s old, worn out planetarium will be replaced by a state of the art facility just right for the 21st century.

By Miles WhitePhotos courtesy of Orange Coast College

A mock up of the proposed new planetarium that will replace the 1950s-era domed structure reportedly designed by architect Richard Neutra.

See STARS Page12

7May 2014one fifty two

Nobluffing

Local indie

rocker Zach

Baldwin and

The Bluffs

launch their

long awaited

Zoo Boots.

It’s nearly midnight on Tuesday when Zach Baldwin begins

to pack up after a show at La Cave, and heads back to what he calls home. He opens a garage door three quarters of the way, plops down on a mattress inches above the cement, and lights up a cigarette.

With an exhale of smoke, Baldwin expresses that contrary to popular belief, the everyday life of an up-and-coming musician is anything but glamorous. His day-to-day life is a constant struggle to balance band practices and recording sessions with his full-time management position at the sub shop Jersey Mike’s.

“Sure, I’m a musician. But first, I am a human,” Baldwin said. “Music hasn’t paid a single bill yet, but fortunately sandwiches do.”

The 22-year-old Costa Mesa native began playing music at age 5 and since

then has used his psychedelic music style and intricate song writing to take over the Orange County indie-rock music scene.

“I started with the trumpet, went on to the saxophone and eventually learned the drums, piano, bass and finally guitar. Somewhere along the line figured I could sing too. It always just came easy to me, like second nature,” Baldwin said.

After a few other failed musical projects, Baldwin formed The Bluffs in 2011 with then-roommate Nate Bennett and Bennett’s younger brother, Nick. The band went through three drummers their first year before

finding current drummer Sean Murray, who was the drummer for a band they played with in 2012.

Through much local success, The Bluffs have had the opportunity to play venues all over Southern California, including the famous House of Blues. However, Baldwin always takes every opportunity to come back and represent the band’s home town of Costa Mesa.

“I have been supporting The Bluffs since the beginning and it is always good to get to watch them locally, they

Story and Photos By Kylee Pico

See BAND Page 11

8 May 2014 one fifty two

La familia real de California

I haven’t decided if it’s arrogance or laziness that causes me to tell people to simply Google it when I am asked

a causal question about my family. Either way, I earn quick kudos once they actually do.

Be honest, if your family was heavily woven into California history, you would probably do the same.

“The Picos were examples of the most politically powerful families of California while it was still a Mexican province,” said PBS Frontline writer Mario de Valdes in

his article “Famous Families” about my royal relations.

Growing up as a direct descendant of Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California, doesn’t give me instant recognition — aside from my fourth grade social studies teacher and a history major I once met at a concert — however I did grow up in a proud family rich in culture. Seeing my name on street signs in nearly every town throughout southern California is pretty awesome too.

The irony of my family’s history is that

what was once California’s richest family, both in wealth and culture, is now a melting pot of middle-class white folks who get together and talk about when we were Mexican.

Despite my family understanding that Pio Pico was taken advantage of by Caucasian Californians in the 1800s, we are also extremely prideful and he has always been described as a very kind man with optimism. Some see Pio Pico as naïve — a man with trust in people who would prove to stab him in the back and, u

By Kylee Pico

9May 2014one fifty two

ultimately, change the road for my family. However, most history books tell another

story. The books claim that Pio Pico was a man of the arrogant sort, a politically powerful man with a fancy for gambling and a desire for a lavish lifestyle. However, I think, through family lore, that this idea of him was built over decades by historians to sugar coat California’s state history. Most of them will tell you that he “granted” his land to big business white folks who came into California after the treaty of Guadalupe Hildago.

My family will tell you a different story. They will tell you he was taken advantage

of — getting swindled out of his home and rancho, only knowing Spanish; he would sign documents for what he thought was a loan but ended up being the deeds to his land.

This knowledge is family lore. During holidays, aside from barbecuing and after-dessert naps, our family might sit around a cousin’s backyard, dive into my Nani’s famous ceviche, and discuss the Pico family history.

We discuss how in the 1840s my family owned most of southern California, from L.A. to San Diego including Catalina Island and the San Clemente Islands and how today, most of us don’t even own our own homes — let alone any type of valued property.

For some reason I always found it somewhat humorous when we tell the story about how Pio Pico traded the island of Catalina to Leo Carillo, the actor who played the Cisco Kid in the old black and

white movies, for a horse and silver saddle. “Back in the day, Pio had gotten the

better of the deal. Looking back now, not so much,” my cousin Phil Pico says with a laugh.

I can also recall a number of heated conversations around the time the Pio Pico Historical State Park in Whittier was scheduled to be closed because of the state’s financial troubles. The park includes the grounds and the mansion Pio Pico lived in. To say my family was outraged would be an understatement. At the time, they were informed our forefather’s past home was one of seven parks scheduled to be closed in the summer of 2012.

I remember standing, along with my cousins and many people, in front of the mansion with signs demanding the mansion be saved. The park honored not only my forefather, but a man who is called the quintessential Californian. The state appreciated that. In the end, with the help of many volunteer groups, we won the fight

to keep the mansion open.The mansion is within spitting distance

of my grandmother’s house in Whittier, which I grew up going to every weekend. Although my grandmother is the only Pico left living in Whittier today, our family still gathers at the mansion for annual reunions, weddings and other festivities.

In 2003, the Pio Pico State Historic Park hosted a huge party honoring the newly renovated mansion and our family. I remember it was the most people I had ever seen on the property. That was when I realized that this was not just a place important to me, but to the entire community. There was live music at every corner, a man making tacos and these awesome blue quesadillas (oh the important things you remember when you’re 10) and as a family member I did not have to pay for any of the carnival style games they offered.

As I write this, my family highly anticipates the next event to take place at the park — my great-uncle’s wedding in early May. I can envision it now, walking along the dirt pathway that leads under the high, beautiful arbors, eventually taking us into a vineyard on the backside of the mansion. For me, the air just breathes easier here — pure tranquility.

To what most people is merely a historic landmark they pass on their drive down the 605 freeway is my great-great-great-great-grandfather’s backyard. And, the Pico House, the large building that stands in the old plaza of Los Angeles, across from the famous Olvera Street as a part of El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Monument, was his most prized business venture. So next time you drive throughout the San Fernando Valley, down Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica or get off of Pico Avenue to head down to the beaches of San Clemente, remember whose backyard you’re wandering in.

Pio Pico was born on May 5, 1801 and died in September 1894. Throughout his 93 years under the flags of Spain, Mexico and the United States, he rose from the poverty of the San Gabriel Mission to the highest office in the state of California, earning recognition as one of the most remarkable figures in California history.

He dedicated most of his time to transforming Los Angeles from a remote pueblo into the metropolis we know today. Although he died a poor man, he remained a proud and stately figure and I can assure you that his legacy will live on for generations to come and stay a topic of conversation at Pico family barbecues.

“What are we to do then? Shall we remain supine, while these daring strangers are overrunning our fertile plains, and gradually outnumbering and displacing us? Shall these incursions go on unchecked, until we shall become strangers in our own land?”

— Pio Picolast Mexican governor

of California

one fifty twoMay 201410

Long ago, when Orange County contained dairy lands, orchards and farms, developers acquired a piece of land that, during the time of America’s effort to reach the moon, became part of the county’s housing boom.

Aerospace workers found the neighborhood convenient to both work and the entertaining features the county had to offer, including the beaches and Disneyland. I came with my family to this place, and spent my formative years with neighborhood friends.

When we were 10, Jay, Craig, Rich and I spent many of our summer hours trekking across wide open fields. We would tag after older children, and we eventually discovered what we called the secret hills against a rise in the local topography. There was a small spring-fed lake below the old Victorian Newland farmhouse. My friends and I spent summers netting tadpoles and rolling, screeching, down cliff-side

dirt paths on bicycles near empty farm buildings.

We shared activities which, over many years, changed. When it became possible to conquer new horizons, we often went together, graduating through tadpoles to girls, and from there to jobs, beer and books.

The duties of life came calling and we gradually separated. We began families and careers in other cities. Or so I assumed. Then I was back. And so were Craig and Jay — back to the old neighborhood.

It can come as a mild shock to rediscover old schoolmates when returning home, decades later. What should one say to reestablish bonds — we were way past chasing frogs.

In the rediscovery of old friends there are some very basic curiosities. To accept one another as in the past the social gaps must be filled in. We want to know what they did to get back again.

I am now one such old-new person. I came to the coast from a north Orange County lakeside community in the hills. I ended up back in the old neighborhood

because I received a call from my 90-year-old mom’s doctor, telling me that she had suffered a temporal stroke and she would need help occasionally.

So she requested my aid. Mom had lived independently since her husband died five years earlier. My wife and I then left our 16-year residence in the hills. We brought ourselves to the Huntington Beach home and between doctor visits to mom’s medical specialists, I had some time to explore

In walking the neighborhood and inspecting this old-new situation, it was a bit of a joy to find one landmark that remains sharply etched in my memory — a particular 7-Eleven store in the neighborhood frequented by kids. Everything else seemed almost unrecognizable except street names and house numbers, but the corner store is identical to what it was in the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s.

A few neighborhood houses remained familiar too. An old friend who shared in some of my early frog catching afternoons now lives in a house once owned by another close neighbor. Jay Cook, 56, a manager at a large

Homeward Bound

Lazy summer days had long

since been exchanged

for families and work, but

a return to his childhood

home gave one student a look backward

and forward.

By John Hazelton

See HOME Page 11

connected to the people in this town,” Baldwin’s close friend Pearson Castner said. “They know it is because of their fans that they are where they are today, and the appreciation just comes through their performances here. Zach is beyond humble.”

Two flights of stairs below ground, an incendiary sound engulfs the small cabaret bar La Cave. Through a packed room of wildly dancing 20-somethings, Baldwin’s presence stands out as he’s framed between his band mates.

A pastel, paisley-printed button-up glued to his body by beads of sweat and his feet bare as usual, he tosses aside his dripping, jet black hair that hangs down just past his brow and screams out into the crowd, nearly hypnotizing his audience into moving their bodies as he does.

Tonight The Bluffs came to finally promote the EP “Zoo Boots” which was two years in the making. The discs were laid out on the edge of the stage free for the taking.

“The fans already paid for ‘Zoo Boots,’ it would be wrong to charge them twice,” Baldwin said. “It took two years to produce ‘Zoo Boots’ because

of our budget, but every large profit we got from a show went toward the recording sessions. Basically we owe it to our fans.”

“Zoo Boots” is a collection of the fan’s favorite compositions, most of which were written by Baldwin, who said he pulls his inspiration for lyrics from inner experiences to historical scandals such as Jonestown and his six-year romance.

“[Baldwin] writes the deepest and most poetic lyrics of any up and coming indie-rock group I’ve heard. He is more of a poet than a song writer, like a modern-day Jim Morrison,” Castner said.

Back in his garage turned apartment, Baldwin pops off the top to a Sierra Nevada and reaches for the pack of American Spirits that sits on the concrete ground. He sticks another cigarette into the corner of his mouth but before lighting up validates his living situation.

“Sure most people don’t see this as ideal, I didn’t either at first, but now, to me this is paradise,” Baldwin said as he spread out his arms embracing his surroundings. “These are the best people I know and as long as I’m living with them it’s all worth it.”

With that said, he holds up the glass beer bottle as a cheer, his infectious laugh spreading

throughout the room like a wild fire. The people sitting in front of him idolize him for his free spirited ideology.

Tonight, Baldwin was a local icon, but tomorrow he will return to being a sandwich shop

manager, a boyfriend and a roommate.

“John Lennon said it,” Baldwin said, pointing to his tattooed upper bicep. “‘Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright.’”

11May 2014one fifty two

BAND: Zach Baldwin writes poetic lyrics for his indie rock band The Bluffs.From Page 7

HOME: Well past the days of catching frogs on summer days, a student goes home.

merhcandising outlet is now in the house, one block away from his childhood home.

Cook married the daughter of the original owners and as he lived and raised a child, the owners died and more sadly, he became a widow. Thus, Cook became the owner.

It was not as mysterious as I had imagined. But, I came for a visit and to seize the chance to chat about our friendship’s progress from summer

afternoon tadpole hunts to the autumn morning beer-can clean-ups around the wall our group sat on. That place is at what now is Cook’s house. An upper bedroom door opened and out walked yet another early acquaintance, namely Craig Munroe.

I didn’t recognize Munroe instantly, as he had had a growth spurt to over six feet tall, lost his glasses and had grown some odd gray sideburns.

Munroe, 57, has been

divorced since the 1990s. I was delighted to learn he is still vigorous and working as a manager-planner for a manufacturing facility in the next town. He seems to get along well in a household of two adults and one mid-teen, Lisle Cook. Munroe came to live with Cook when his large family moved to Washington state. Munroe found some of the company he needed by taking residence with Cook and his teenaged son.

Perhaps my initial shock

was an overreaction to the new situation. The enormous dark Baldwin piano which dominated the Cook’s blue hued living room is gone, the space now housing a plasma television system which fills the room no less. The times will change, I thought.

I chatted and pulled on the house owner’s unusual choice of a cold Mickey’s Big Mouth

See HOME Page 12

From Page 10

12 May 2014 one fifty two

Theatre, the Science Lecture Halls, etcetera,” Kings said. “The problem is that a lot of times architects work as designers and they work with other architects.”

According to Kings, in this case, the other architect was Alexander — the architect in the construction documents — so it could be possible that Neutra was the design architect behind the buildings. But, Kings assured, until they go back and find who actually paid him and find the documents that show the relationship and the contract he had or if he took a payment from someone, no one knows for certain what his role was.

The Coast Community College District Board of

Trustees has final say in whether the buildings will be replaced, regardless of the historic background, according to Pagel.

It is a process which asks questions on whether the current buildings are qualified to stay, or if it’s best to replace them with newer, more modernized buildings.

“We have to build with taxpayer money. Are we going to use taxpayer money to save these mediocre Richard Neutra buildings and try to restore them into something useful when really it would be cheaper to tear them down and build new,” Kings said. “It’s a real struggle because I see it from both sides.”

According to Kings, Neutra is one of the most important mid-century modernist architects in California. He’s important

nationally but he’s really unique to California because this region’s climate is the only climate that was able to fully utilize the indoor, outdoor, natural living concepts that he was a proponent of.

“If you look at the Crystal Cathedral [where Neutra designed the 13-story Tower of

Hope in 1968], if you look at the work here at OCC, it’s all kind of textbook Richard Neutra,” Kings said.

The document search is on-going and it is unknown whether or not the correct papers will be found. But, according to Pagel, the mystery of Neutra will be exposed soon.

From Page 3

BUILDING: Officials are examining contracts to see who designed OCC.

Photo courtesy of Orange Coast College

Several of the original campus buildings could be razed to make room for upgrades but purists are leary of the progress.

“I just participate in the events,” Contopoulos said. “I like to take a hands-off approach with the club when they raise money and travel to planetariums. They are pretty much their own unit.”

For a place intended to inspire even the non-astronomically inclined to take a deeper look into the night sky, the old planetarium has worn out its use. However, starting in the summer of 2015, the planetarium is going to get a complete makeover including, but not limited to, a fully functional star gazing dome 50 feet in diameter.

“It will feature a lobby with exhibits, including a Foucault Pendulum,” said Doug Bennett, executive director of the Orange Coast College Foundation. “It can also be used as a large group lecture hall for subjects other than astronomy.”

The new planetarium will seat 100 plus the amount currently in the old theater, and will encompass most of the space the math wing on campus currently

takes up. There will be a lobby/exhibit hall outside the dome and a courtyard with a ticket booth for presentations inside the dome. The whole project will cost an estimated $16 million.

The new dome will also double as a lecture hall just as the current one barely does. Classes like anatomy, chemistry, physiology and marine science will be able to use to the screen within the dome for their lectures.

“The existing planetarium was a good addition to OCC when it was opened in the mid-1950s,” Bennett said, “but it is no longer functional and would be expensive and difficult to retrofit. And, given its small size, it would still be of limited use.”

The buildings, allegedly designed by the late architect Richard Neutra, will be demolished for the project, and are more than half a century old.

With better prospects for the future of the OCC planetarium, perhaps now students will flock toward rather than from campus to get a glance of the universe.

STARS: A new way to see the cosmos. From Page 6

beer and considered things.Struggling to control a sense

of shock at uprooting one’s life is natural but it had to begin somewhere. By meeting my neighbor as an adult, there was a momentary overlay between decades-old memories and the new main actors.

I clarified my expectations. After all, I was here as a returnee as well. My internal search for comfort and logic brought up the information about my own brother in law, who after buying different houses to live in all over south Orange County for 20 years, had also gone home.

A few years ago my wife’s brother had indeed chosen his next house as one located less than a block away from where he grew up in his parent’s house.

Relocating oneself and family is not exactly easy and is almost never painless. It has been measured in the census that that two-thirds of all movers are between 18 and 29,

with more than 40 percent of them moving on again within five years. I now fall well outside that demographic, and I fervently hope I never have to move again.

Sometimes, securing a home at all is a challenge. When a mover is confronted with the logic of choices, a known neighborhood can shine in the advantage of holding fewer surprises. You can try to name something better, but there is an indisputable comfort in living with the familiar — and recalling where to catch frogs.

HOME: A journey to the past.From Page 11

152 is put together by students in Orange Coast College’s Feature Writing class, Journalism 117.

The class is open for enrollment in the fall.

the staff

Miles White Ignacio Cervantes

Kylee PicoJohn Hazelton

Cover photos by Camila Prisco Paraiso

one fifty twoA Student Publication

By members of the Journalism 115 class